[ken5050]

I don't believe that Miller will switch NOW. It's not principaled. He'd feel, unlike Jeffords, that he'd not kept the faith with the folks back home. And there's also the strong possibility that Sen Chaffe would switch to the Dems, thus negating Miller's move.

Now let's assume that the GOP picks up three seats this fall. A reasonable supposition. That gives them 52 seats, and majority, and it also makes sure that Chaffee isn't going anywhere. Now here's where it could get very interesting. Take a look at the seats coming up in 2004:

Dems: Lincoln, Boxer, Dodd, Graham, Miller, Inouye, Bayh, Breaux, Mikulski, Reid, Schumer, Edwards, Dorgan, Wyden, Hollings, Daschle, Leahy, Murray, Feingold....total 19

GOP: Shelby, Murkowski, McCain, Campbell, Crapo, Fitzgerald, Grassley, Brownback, Bunning, Bond, Gregg, Voinovich, Nichols, Spector, Bennett..total 15

That's right, the Dems have 19 seats to defend, the GOP only 14..and of those 14 seats, only one looks iffy, Fitzgerald in Illinois. But remember, there's a good likehood that in 2004 President Bush will be running for reelection, riding on top of the polls, with victories over Iraq and other successes underr his belt, a scenario that's likely to bode well for the GOP candidates. Yes, I know, anything can happen, and 2+ years is a long time, but I'm looking for trends, here, so stay with me.

There are some possibilities of retirements on the GOP side, and I'll include McCain, Bennett, and Spector on that list, but except possibly for PA, all seats should stay GOP.

So, after the 2002 election, the GOP has 52 seats in the Senate, and the Dems aren't going to gain any in 2004. Now, among those coming up on the Dem side in 2004 are Miller and Breaux, among the two most conservative members, now looking at the prospect of at least four years, near the end of their careers, in the minority. Not a very appetizing prospect, especially since the Dem minority will be more idelogically skewed to the hard left. Just think about all those upcoming Supreme Court nominations..So, Breaux and Miller cross the aisle. Now the GOP count is 55. Starting next year, a solid working majority for the GOP in the Senate, and full support for President Bush's agenda, and judicial appointments..

Now, among the NOW 17 Dem senators up for re-election in 2004, there are a lot of targets of opportunity. Consider:

Blanche Lincoln....she's weak, hasn't done much, and Arkansas is trending GOP more and more.

Barbara Boxer....well, California's in the midst of an interesting gubernatorial race now, who knows, and Boxer may be pushing the ideological envelope. At the worst, she'll have to work hard if the GOP finds a good candidate.

Dodd....he's mentioned retiring, and if he's looking at minority status, he'd retire. Gov Rowland is a strong state wide candidate.

Reid...he's weak, he just squeaked by the last time. I'd have said he'd be a prime target, expect the recent decision to site the nuclear waste disposal in Nevada might give him an issue. Still, he's on the endangered list.

Edwards....if he runs for the WH, he could face a problem back home. Folks might not like him runnin for two seats at the same time, and the positions he'd have to take on the national scene could make it very tough for him at the state level. A lot depends on how streong a candidate the GOP fields

Dorgan....With Bush at the top of the GOP ticket, and a strong candidate, Byron might have a tough time...

Weyden....could be had

Hollings....looking at 4 years+ back in the minority, might he choose to retire? If so, the seat should go to the GOP

Daschle....Oh please, would that it be so......but if Johnson loses this fall, and Tom's back in the minority, and looking at no chance to retake the Senate in 2004, might he choose to retire, make some money as a lobbyist? And the seat should go GOP then.

Murray....It's time for her to go...she should be an easy target for the GOP.

Feingold....Wisconsin is less liberal, the possibility of picking off a seat exists...

OK, that's 11 Dem seats that could be considered in play. 5 would give the GOP a supermajority..and again, President Bush may well be running in 2004 with the best possible circumstances. And of those 11 Dem seats, a pick-up of 5 gives the GOP a supermajority, the ability to invoke cloture.

And among a whole lots of goodies, that means maybe most important the ability to complete reshape the Supreme Court for the next 20 years....

So, there's a lot riding on the 2002 Senate races....if it goes as we hope, then it might, just might be the start of retaking, and reshaping, this country.

Oh yeah, while I'm at it....I think that anyone who's been following events in the senate realises that Trent Lott has got to go. And Sen Nickles, while a good man, does not possess the verbal and media skills necessary to be an effective public spokesman. It's time for Bill Frist, as soon as possible..

Author's note: I'm just an amateur political strategist, like many on FR, and am not attempting to imply that I have incisive knowledge about the indivual senate races. I'll leave that to those of you in the various states..you're a lot closer to each of those races, with a better sense of what could happen. Especially as to who the GOP candidates might be in thevarious races. But I"m looking to discern a possibility, a trend, no...I'll say it, a probability, and it's in that context that I offer these thoughts and welcome your comments, and flames..

[altair]

Barbara Boxer....well, California's in the midst of an interesting gubernatorial race now, who knows, and Boxer may be pushing the ideological envelope. At the worst, she'll have to work hard if the GOP finds a good candidate.

I seriously doubt it. As much as I want to see her go, I think she's got a senate seat for as long she wants it. The closest we came was in '94 when Feinstein was vulnerable and the best the California Republican party could come up with was Michael Huffington. Ugh.

[kayak]

ken ~~~ if we don't aim high, we won't achieve high.

We need these kinds of goals to spur us on .... and if the job that was done to Pickering last week doesn't provide incentive to strive towards this kind of majority then I don't even want to imagine what it would take.

[StockAyatollah]

Interesting, if highly optimistic, analysis. But socialism and the tyranny of the majority are our future. Most voters are not rational thinkers. Most voters think Social Security, Head Start and Americorps are great ideas. And by now it should be clear to you that W and the Republican Party leadership will do anything to try and appeal to "moderates", PCers, minorities, soccer-moms, and even illegal aliens: CFR, amnesty, "Islam is a peaceful religion", etc.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

I believe the flaw here is that THIS year we have 20 seats to defend and the Democrats have only 14. I do not see how we gain 3.

REP: Allard CO, Cochran MS, Collins ME, Craig ID, Domenici NM, Enzi WY, Gramm TX Not Running, Hagel NE, Helms NC, Hutchinson AR, Inhofe OK, McConnell KY, Roberts KS, Sessions AL, Smith NH, Smith OR, Stevens AK, Thompson TN Not Running, Thurmond SC Not Running, Warner VA

Rats: Baucus MT, Biden DE, Carnahan MO, Cleland GA, Durbin IL, Harkin IA, Johnson SD, Kerry MA, Landreiu LA, Levin MI, Reed RI, Rockerfeller WV, Torricelli NJ, Wellstone MN

[Rowdee]

..."Murray....It's time for her to go...she should be an easy target for the GOP"....

Based on her recent re-election, the GOP didn't seem much interested in their candidate winning against her....so what changes things....they find a candidate who is a suck-upRINO or what?

[The Old Hoosier]

Pretty wishful thinking for 2004. Let's just knock off Cleland, Johnson, Carnahan and Wellstone this year, and work from there. That should be enough to pack the court.

[vannrox]

From NEWSMAX:

The Socialist Democrat Strategy:
Win the Congress by Wrecking the Economy

Phil Brennan

Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2002


Pity poor Tom Daschle. Pity poor Dick Gephardt. Pity poor Terry MacAuliffe. Prior to Sept. 11, these three Socialist Democrats planned to demonize President Bush as part of their grand strategy to win control of Congress in the November elections.


The gist of their campaign against Mr. Bush was to challenge his legitimacy as president, basing their attack on the theme that he really lost the 2000 election and had no business sitting in the Oval Office, which rightfully belonged to the Algore.


For this he must be punished in the 2002 elections, and driven out of office in 2004.


They also planned to go after the black vote, relying on their hoped-for ability to convince African-Americans of the blatantly false accusation that their right to vote, or to have their votes counted, had been violated in the 2000 election.


They were also gearing up to challenge Mr. Bush personally, charging that he is some kind of nincompoop totally unprepared to assume and carry out the duties of the presidency.


All of that fell apart after 9-11. Out of that disaster emerged the real George Bush – a tough, no-nonsense leader entirely capable of handling his job superbly under the most difficult of circumstances, a George Bush who has won the admiration and respect of a huge majority of his fellow Americans, including a clear majority of African-Americans, by his deft handling of the war against terrorism.


To make matters worse, some among the Socialist Democrat Party's most reliable allies – the elitist mainstream media – had the gall to spend a million or so dollars on a probe of the disputed Florida 2000 election that ended up, ever so reluctantly, by conceding that George Bush most probably did win the state's electoral votes that put him over the top after all.


So what to do?


It didn't take them long to dredge up the old 1992 campaign slogan "It's the economy, stupid." In no time at all they had commercials blaming the economy on the "Bush recession," hoping the voters would forget that the downturn in the economy started under Bill Clinton.


Still smarting over their inability to stop the president's tax cut program from going into effect, they now have the gall to blame the current economic malaise on that tax cut, going back to the old Socialist Democrat strategy of inciting class warfare and class hatred.


Their answer to the recession is simply to promote a socialist program of ladling out billions of tax dollars to buy votes, thereby deepening the war-induced deficits and doing nothing, as President Bush has pointed out, to create jobs for the unemployed or get the economy back on track with programs that work.


Left with no alternative other than to revive their age-old campaign strategy of class warfare and spend, spend, spend-and-elect politics, the Socialist Democrats are heading for an electoral catastrophe in November. Their barely concealed desire to see the economy worsen in the belief that the voters will blame Bush and the GOP will backfire and the Republicans will widen their margins in both House and Senate ... if.


If the president recognizes that his strategy of seeking bipartisanship at the cost of pursuing his plans for a revivified America is a self-defeating one. You cannot appease an enemy bent on destroying you. The only way George Bush could satisfy Daschle, Gephardt, MacAuliffe and such leftist propaganda sheets as the New York Times would be to erect a statue of Karl Marx on the White House lawn and pay homage to it three times a day.


There are signs that Mr. Bush knows this and plans to act accordingly. His vow that the only way taxes can be raised is "over my dead body" brought jeers from the Marxist media but loud cheers from his fellow Americans who love a warrior.


It's just a beginning, but a good and persuasive one, with the promise of more of the same to come. The Socialist Democrats are about to learn the same lesson Osama bin Laden is learning: Don't mess with George W. Bush.


Moreover, the president is taking full advantage of the bully pulpit, patiently explaining the simple economic truths so disparaged by Socialist Democrats, that the way out of an economic slump is to encourage small and large companies and the investors, whose money supports them, to create jobs by providing them with tax relief and other such commonsense incentives.


Most important: The President has to hammer home the shocking truth that the Socialist Democrat Party is determined to block all attempts to get the economy working again, thus creating more joblessness in the belief that an army of angry unemployed and the owners of failed businesses will blame their plight on Bush and the GOP and vote for Socialist Democrats in the November congressional elections.


This is their Achilles' heel.


Control of the Congress is vital. Should the Socialist Democrats manage to take control of both Houses on Capitol Hill, the nation will experience a stepped-up version of the havoc being wreaked upon America by a Marxist-controlled Senate determined to turn a recession into a depression in order to win in November.


It is imperative for the welfare of the nation that the president and his party get out there on the campaign trail now – congressional district by congressional district – and begin to lambaste the sheer dishonesty of their opponents and not let up until Election Day, November 2002.


Failure to do that could, in effect, hand control of the Congress over to Marxism's poster woman on the Hill, Mrs. William Clinton, and her sleazy socialist compatriots. Wouldn't that be nice?


Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

Washington; Murray (D). As much as I hate to say it, she'll be re-elected. She's as dumb as a bag of hammers, but the Republicans in this state can't find a candidate and can't run a campaign. Name me the last Republican from WA with any clout or respect?

I don't see Wyden from Oregon falling either. He, at least appears to have a central nervous system.

[theDentist]

Perhaps I missed it, but you forgot about Jumpin' Jim Jeffords possibly changing his mind. You know the old adage: "Once a prostitute..."

[WOSG]

Now let's assume that the GOP picks up three seats this fall. Which three seats????

[medved]

If they don't get some sort of a handle on voting fraud in a hell of a hurry, nothing else the republicans can do will matter; they'll never win another election in this country. The last election would have been a total blowout without massive fraud in the picture.

[Paulus Invictus]

I like your analysis, but it will take a major planning, organization and implementation effort to beat the RATs. They are already planning their strategies to defeat us in 2004.

I suggest that Freepers become more active campaigners for the next election, doing all we can to elect the elect (Republicans). Make the grass roots sharp and effective by working locally and at State and Federal levels to re-take the Senate and increase the majority in the house.

[happygrl]

Thanks for the analysis.

[usconservative]

That's right, the Dems have 19 seats to defend, the GOP only 14..and of those 14 seats, only one looks iffy, Fitzgerald in Illinois.

Wrong. Fitzgerald isn't up for re-election this year. He isn't up for re-election until 2004. Democrat Dick Durbin is up this year. You blew it.

Durbin is considered SAFE in Illinois, unfortunately. :(

[Common Tator]

That is a very intersting analysis. I find little in it with which to disagree.

I note you are predicting that the Republicans will pick up 3 seats this year. I know the media keeps saying this year is too close to call but the generic polls show a 2 point Republican lead. And I agree with you, if this holds, it is very likely that the Republicans will pick up three seats this year.

What has puzzled me is how Daschle is acting. Any person who has studied which strategies work and which don't has to understand that what Daschle is doing makes no sense. You can gridlock government in good times when the nation is at peace and be rewarded at the polls. But in war or economic cricis producing gridlock in opposition is political suicide. I kept asking myself, "Does Daschle not know this?" And the answer keeps coming back, YES, he has to know it. The big question is, why does he do it?

People only do counter productive things when being counter productive can not make the situation worse. If he is certain that he is going into the minority and will likely be there for at least 6 more years, he may very well decide to get in his licks while he can. He seems to be saying, I am going to get kicked out of majority status, but I will hurt you as much as I can before I go.

Daschle reminds me of a football team well behind in the 4th quarter. They have no hope of victory They put all their efforts into trying to sack the other sides quarterback.

Daschle does not look like a man trying to win the game. He does not look like a man trying to score points. He does not look like someone trying to prevent the other side from scoring. He looks like a player trying to sack the other sides quarterback just to make him hurt.

Either that or Daschle is one stupid puppy.

[D. Miles]

You left out the retirement of Fred Thompson, a seat that we are SURE will go dem if Lamar Alexander gets the primary vote in TN! Lamar has the blessings of the Whitehouse, and the endorsement of Taxquist! WE in TN are assured a loss of this seat if he gets voters nod on August 1st!

[lodwick]

Good job Ken. bttt

[d14truth]

Thank you for the 'ping' to this thread. Hopeful signs if we keep on doing what is 'right'.